Friday, March 16, 2018

For the third year in a row, at Christmas our daughter gave Cindy and I tickets to go and see the Auto Club 400 Nascar race in Fontana, California. She again has also added her services of staying with Cindy's Dad Ray while we are there.

We have some of our swag together already, including the new ear protection that I picked up for the both of us. I suggest that if you go to an event like this to make sure that you take some type of ear protection because not only is this a fun event, it is also LOUD!!

I have enjoyed car racing since I was just a kid, some of you will remember drivers like Bobby Allison and Coo Coo Marlin, and later on Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, and Dale Earnhardt. These were some of the men that I kept up with and pulled for back in the day. Now I pull for Kevin Harvick and have been really keeping my eye on Chase Elliott, the son of "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville" Bill Elliott, this kid is a respectable young man who you would have a hard time not liking.

These names may not mean anything to you, but racing is really a lot more than just cars going around in a circle. It is a passion to a lot of families, a livelihood, a tradition. Racing is what feeds a whole lot of people.

Behind every race car driver there is a team of mechanics who build their engines, a team of fabrication guys who piece their cars together, a car chief who makes sure everything is done to specifications, and a crew chief who calls the shots on race day to his team of guys who jump over the wall during pit stops.

These crew members change the tires and clean the windshield, fill the gas tank and make needed adjustments to the car, they do all of this in less than 15 seconds in a synchronized manner that will impress anyone who appreciates hard work and determination shown through teamwork, the reason for this is to get their driver back out on the track faster than 35 to 40 other teams, who are at the same time attempting to do the same thing.

Then you have the fans who fill the stands to cheer their favorite drivers onto victory, and not just the driver, because behind every driver there is a whole team, a family...Is there a point to this story? Not really, I'm just really excited to know that Cindy and I will be there for the Auto Club 400 this Sunday. The couple in the 17th row just before the start/finish line, we will be the ones with the brand new matching earmuffs.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Words for Wednesday is a fun challenge for everyone to participate in, just take the list of prompts and use some or all of them any way you want, the purpose of the challenge is for us to write something and have fun doing it.

Delores from Mumblings is providing the words this month, if you join in please drop by and let Delores know so we can all enjoy your offerings too.

The newspaper headlines would claim the CAPER went off almost unnoticed, the vault in the bank was emptied out over the weekend without a sound and with armed guards posted right outside the door.

The BEDLAM of activity began once the bank manager opened the vault on Monday morning and found that the contents of the safe were gone, it was actually cleaned to the SEAMS with a hole neatly opened in the middle of the floor, leaving an exit for all of the money to SCARPER away.

The GLUM looks on the guards faces as they were being questioned by the FBI showed their embarrassment, the PRIDE in a job well done for them had disappeared down that TRENCH also.

Investigators flooded the vault lifting fingerprints and taking both GLOSSY color and black and white photos of every angle of the crime. The bank robber in this case was definitely a CHARMED soul because he had vanished without a trace of DNA or evidence left behind.

"Johnny!!, it's time to come in now!", "Awww Mom, can't I play a little longer?", "Come on in now, and bring your little sister too, I have your favorite PORK and beans already on the table!"

Johnny walked slowly towards the back door with his sister skipping behind playing a tune on her PENNY WHISTLE. "After lunch you and Lucy will go out back and clean up that mess you've made!" Mom said to Johnny "Just look at all that TRASH blowing in the yard, if I didn't know better I'd say it was money laying out there."

Johnny grinned as he looked back over his shoulder out across the yard.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Coffee first thing in the morning is my go to drink, nothing fancy just a mug of plain old black coffee, but if I forget to flip the switch on the coffee maker then my coffee drinking routine is delayed, thus ruining coffee being ready when Cindy's Dad and I sit down for breakfast.

"Jimmy! You forgot to start the coffee!" And why is Cindy yelling at me? Because starting the coffee is my job. I get up before she does and she makes breakfast as soon as she gets up, if Cindy starts the coffee when she starts breakfast then the coffee isn't ready, if I start the coffee when I get up then it is. Besides she does make the coffee every night before she goes to bed so all I have to do is flip the switch, and she doesn't even drink coffee herself, so with that said I have no problem with starting the coffee each morning being my job.

Unloading the dishwasher is something else that I do, and why do I do this you may be asking, Because it's my job... Just how did I get myself saddled with a job like this? Every night when we come in from our computer time, the dishwasher is finished and Cindy walks right past it and sits down, I open up the dishwasher and begin my wifely duty of putting the dishes away.

You won't hear me complain though, because the first thing is we only run the dishwasher once every day, and second is Cindy cleans up after each meal and loads the dishwasher, this includes breakfast, lunch, supper, and any random snacks we may enjoy during the day. After supper she starts the dishwasher and it is ready for me to unload when I shut my computer down.

I could make a stand and refuse to unload it, but then again she is doing all the cooking and the loading of the dishwasher, and with that said I'm not ashamed to admit that I unload the dishwasher because it's my job.

One of my sons told a joke a number of years ago:

"How many men does it take to sweep the floor?"
"I don't know, how many?"
"None, because that's women's work!"

I don't necessarily think that is too funny! Because I sweep the floors in our house, I mop them too, and I even run the vacuum...Why? You may be asking, even though you already know the answer! Because it's my job!

Cindy does the cleaning and dusting of all the knick knacks and pretty pretties, the wiping down of the counters and stove, you know all of the above the floor stuff. I'm a whole lot safer cleaning the floors than her collection of pretty things, and whether you see doing the floors as women's work or not, I do them in our house because...Ok everybody all at once! "Because it's your job!"

I could go on and list a lot more things, like cleaning toilets while she cleans the rest of the bathroom, or folding sheets while she is on the other end folding the opposite side, or putting away the laundry that she washed and dried.

When I was still working, Cindy did the majority of the household chores without ever asking me for any help, except for taking the trash out, yes taking the trash out is definitely my job and always has been for some reason. I never asked why, I just figured the answer was..."Because it's your job!"

But since I've retired it's only fair that I pitch in and help out around the house. The thing is, there are jobs in each of our households that have to be consistently done, some of them you always did and others were your spouses responsibility, while other tasks were always shared. End result is whether you like it or not, they still have to be done.

I don't really mind helping out with housework because I know somewhere within the fine print of the marriage contract, there is a line that reads "Jimmy you will do these things, Because it's your job!"

Cindy and Jimmy

My wife Cindy and I live in the Inland Empire, she was born and raised in Southern California and I came from South Carolina, together we seem to find humor in most situations and have lived through a lot of changes.

Jimmy's Opinion is my place to reflect on life as I see it, to tell a few stories of our lives, opinions that may or may not matter, memories of days gone by, and observations on what's happening now.

Hang around for a while, I look forward to reading your comments and solving all of the worlds problems with your help....we can have fun trying anyway.